No, this is nothing like ebonics. It's the opposite of ebonics, if anything. Cornel West may be black, but his speech is not at all ebonics. It's pretentious straining at erudition, which is why it's so damned funny when he screws up.

I would not put up a post making fun of someone who lapses into an ebonics-type usage. I don't see the value in mocking that. I do see big value in puncturing a puffed-up academic — even though political correctness nags at me to refrain from making fun of the way a black person speaks.

I do have some sympathy for West here, though, because I think PC folk have failed — over a long period of time — to give him the feedback that would have kept him from developing this absurdly inflated style of speech, with its danger of missteps like this, and the self-serious demeanor that makes his mistakes especially funny.

EXCERPT: "Fernandes is one of the officials who explicitly said the voting rights laws were not going to be used to protect anyone but national racial minorities. The Holder DOJ was all 'about politically empowering minorities,' she said in my presence and the presence of dozens of others. Minority turnout was the aim of the DOJ, not equal enforcement of federal law.

"Laws that require dead voters be removed from the rolls? Those are undesirable laws 'that restrict turnout rather than increase it' Fernandes said in my presence, and the presence of dozens of other DOJ attorneys."

No, this is nothing like ebonics. It's the opposite of ebonics, if anything. Cornel West may be black, but his speech is not at all ebonics. It's pretentious straining at erudition, which is why it's so damned funny when he screws up.

I would not put up a post making fun of someone who lapses into an ebonics-type usage. I don't see the value in mocking that. I do see big value in puncturing a puffed-up academic — even though political correctness nags at me to refrain from making fun of the way a black person speaks.

I do have some sympathy for West here, though, because I think PC folk have failed — over a long period of time — to give him the feedback that would have kept him from developing this absurdly inflated style of speech, with its danger of missteps like this, and the self-serious demeanor that makes his mistakes especially funny.

The deeper problem, which is obscured by Professor West's attempt to stretch his vocabulary in unfortunate directions, is his notion that if only the Democrats of the past four years had attempted to govern from even further to the left, then all would have been well and a grateful population would have thrust the Republicans, along with Big Business, Wall Street, bankers, doctors, and other such riff-raff into the trash can of history.

How employment is supposed to go up when businesses are forced into bankruptcy is beyond me, but please don't ask Professor West to explain because I'm sure he's got some foolish rationale or another.

I think what we're seeing is the old liberal notion that throwing enough money at a problem automatically solves it, pushed to its logical extreme.

Ann, did you originally read or listen to this transcript? Reading it, the word jumps out immediately. But hearing it, the word sounded so natural and contextually accurate I didn't even notice the ridiculousness of it on first pass.

How employment is supposed to go up when businesses are forced into bankruptcy is beyond me, but please don't ask Professor West to explain because I'm sure he's got some foolish rationale or another.?

U.S. corporations had their biggest profit quarter, ever, since they started keeping track over 60 yrs ago. So what's the excuse now? Someone said a mean word about them so they won't hire? Someone looked at them funny?

"Laws that require dead voters be removed from the rolls? Those are undesirable laws 'that restrict turnout rather than increase it' Fernandes said in my presence, and the presence of dozens of other DOJ attorneys."

U.S. corporations had their biggest profit quarter, ever, since they started keeping track over 60 yrs ago. So what's the excuse now? Someone said a mean word about them so they won't hire? Someone looked at them funny?

I can tell you exactly what mine and all the other "small" businesses we deal with are doing and have been doing since late 2008. Hunkering down because nobody has a clue what's coming.

They had to fire people as revenues, orders, and business in general dropped. The remaining workforce had to accommodate those lost hands and, as a result, "did more with less".

The revenue, orders, and business slowly (very slowly) started coming back, but everyone I know has been extremely loath to hire any more people and those that are currently working all, to a person, feel lucky to have a job so nobody bitches or votes with their feet.

Being all smug over this, esp. without somehow even acknowledging West's arguments doesn't make you look good, IMO. Like grownups arguing one thing in one room and the children laughing about something else in another other room.

Being all smug over this, esp. without somehow even acknowledging West's arguments doesn't make you look good, IMO. Like grownups arguing one thing in one room and the children laughing about something else in another other room.

You mean like Democrats and the MSM making a BFD about Palin's refudiate?? Or Bush's pronounciation of "nucular".

It sounds like he made surcome into a past tense form as surcame. Surcome means to yield to a superior force. What the heck, Shakespeare and Palin and now this Phd are into the creation of new words when it sounds good to them.

Cornel is a phony. I have known many great African American scholars and teachers and a few huge phonies. He is the latter. The cadence of his speech, the command of a few politically important buzz words and their frequent use are all give aways.

@phx, it seems to me that I acknowledged Professor West's arguments. With the contempt they deserve, of course, but I did acknowledge them.

@garage, in order to hire a person a company needs some ability to contrast what that person costs them (salary, benefits, taxes) with how much additional gross revenue that person will generate. The result of subtracting what the person costs from the additional gross revenues generated from having that person around has a special name. It's called the "net." If the net is negative, or likely to be negative, then the business should not hire that person. Under Obamacare the net is extremely difficult to predict (many potentially costly rules will not even be promulgated until 2012 and thereafter, and moreover they will be promulgated by Kathleen Sebelius, whose hostility towards business is, if anything, even stronger than yours) but likely to be negative. This analysis leaves out the possibility of a "double dip" recession, which is less likely than a year ago but not yet totally improbable. So businesses are cautious about hiring.

Have I explained this in a fashion simple enough for you and phx to comprehend? Please advise.

What I completely fail to understand is that highly educated people like Professor West, of whatever color, continue to rail against "Wall Street" and "Big Business" as Republican allies and supporters. That was true from 1865 to 1930, but after 80 years of Democrat majorities in Congress, that situation has long since been reversed and then some. Big money and big business go where the political power is, and today it is rare to find a gazillionaire who is not a registered Democrat, or at least a reliable Democrat Party donor.

I am still quite taken aback by the praise lavished on President Obama in the media for selecting this marvellously wise and competent Wall Street wizard, William Daley, whose wide experience as a major league investor and businessman will enable him to inaugurate a new era of successful management at the White House as Mr. Obama's Chief of Staff.

Oh, for the love of Mike. Haven't you ever heard a middle-aged person grope for a word and come up with the wrong combo before? Say, the entire Bush administration?

My mother was white, middle class, and hardly trying to speak la-di-da style, and she came up with mistakes like this all the time in her forties. A few years past menopause, and her tongue was back to normal. I've heard people of all races, all classes, and both sexes make errors like this, often. But you commenters apparently never listen to anyone, and are thus amazedly contemptuous of a perfectly common human phenomenon.

You could go over to Language Log and talk about the mechanisms of misspeaking. Or you can do what you chose to do, which is rip on the guy for his race and class, as if that were the reason.

May you all be afflicted with embarrassingly memorable Spoonerisms at the worst possible moments, you self-made cretins.

I suppose it's fair to call out an educated man like Cornel West for making a mistake like this, but you should tread carefully. I've noticed in many black people a habit of using five dollar words where five cent ones would do, and often misusing those words in the process.

IMO, it's an artifact of racism. Many black people, to a degree not so common among whites, feel the need to show that they are educated thinking they'd otherwise be assumed stupid.

I'm perfectly comfortable being me and expecting most people to recognize my intelligence through natural interaction, while dismissing those who who don't recognize it as themselves stupid or unobservant.

Many black people fear they cannot assume that benefit of the doubt that I, as a white guy, take for granted.

A search of the Corpus of Contemporary American English (410 million words, 1990-2010) and of the Corpus of Historical American English (400 million words, 1810s-2000s) turns up exactly ZERO uses of "surcame."

Cornel is a phony. I have known many great African American scholars and teachers and a few huge phonies. He is the latter. The cadence of his speech, the command of a few politically important buzz words and their frequent use are all give aways.

Excellent point. Consider Walter Williams or Thomas Sowell.

Suburbanbanshee said...

Oh, for the love of Mike. Haven't you ever heard a middle-aged person grope for a word and come up with the wrong combo before? Say, the entire Bush administration?

The only time I have previously heard of William Daley was in 2000, and it was then assumed that the Clinton camp picked him to spearhead their Florida vote-checking campaign as a deliberate provocation to the Republican establishment to make them lose their heads and do things even stupider than normal, since to any red-blooded Republican, the name Daley is synonymouswith election fraud.

But now his selection as Chief of Staff is supposed to be symbolic of outreach to the Republicans and a wllingness to compromise?

Missed this admonition when liberals were mocking Bush and insisting his misspeaking was proof he lacked intelligence.

when you put it that way---Prof. West or Obama are mutha-f-ing Demosthenes compared to Bush II, the drunken frat boy, or most repubs from the dirty south. McDonnell generally sounds like he's making speeches to the Louisville Rotary club . As does Limbaughzo, most of the time (tho RL probably paid for some pricey Toastmasters course back in the 90s once his Hillary the feminazi schtick took off). And ...Miss Palin's oratory...well, SarahSpeak wouldn't quite make it in a Reno truck stop ...

Actually, poor speaking skills probably have a greater appeal to Vox Populi than does eloquence. A few conservatives--very few-- might still admire the WF Buckley-rhetoric--but most prefer like SarahSpeak, if not the Noog. Now, refudiate that mutha-f-er

I heard a woman read an abominably long poem at, I think, Clinton's inauguration. I pegged her as someone trying to sound educated and was surprised to learn that it was Maya Angelou, a respected poet. The other day, I heard her again, talking about her recently published cookbook. She still talked that way but I liked her much more. Could be that she has more genuine feeling for food than for Clinton.

J: and what part of Hegel would you like to discuss? The Philosophy of Right is, I think, Hegel's masterwork, but I am reminded of Marx's critique of the "german philosophy." Mr West adds nothing to any sentient persons's understanding of Hegel.

BTW J: you may want to go back and reread Hegel--his argument, as I rcall is that the state is the personification of the zietgeist--the will of the people-- most of whom would be those you refer to as "crackers." (actually Hegel, if my professors were correct, was asserting a case for a German State separate from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the basis of which would have the essence of the volk. But if you want to discuss this, I would be glad to.

wrong once again, edutcher. The point was qualitative, not ...yr usual AA.com frat boy chitchat

Some communication expert or professor could compare some recorded speeches of West or Obama...or John Kerry for that matter to Bush II (or Palin, McConnell, McCaint, many other GOPers) and easily demonstrate the superiority of Obama's speaking abilities (in terms of diction, delivery, content, argumentation, etc) to the good ol boys, regardless if one agrees with the Demos or not. WF Buckley's are no mo'.

McDonnell generally sounds like he's making speeches to the Louisville Rotary club.

Yet, that dumbass "McDonnell" (sic), who in your alternate reality can barely mimic human language in a convincing manner, managed to outsmart the brightest bulbs of the Democratic Party, kept his caucus in line and thwarted some of the worst proposed legislation this Republic has seen in its nearly 235 years.

That's what we in Kentucky call "country dumb." But please, do keep underestimating us until you consign yourself into a fevered, bitter political oblivion, sucker.

Does this post qualify as an example of "eating an intellectually inert brat"? That reminds me, we need another Sarah Palin post. The GOP candidates are restless entering the starting gate, and both sides are running split the others votes in the 3 early primaries. The 3 serious candidates seem to be Palin, Romney and Bush.

So, Ann Althouse teaches Constitutional Law and we have an unprecedented case where the Constitution has been violated on the first day of the new Congress by the House Republican majority.

Two members were not sworn in as they were busy at a fundraiser and one (Pete Sessions) nonetheless voted and presided over the rules committee despite the US Constitution saying this:

“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution.”

Now those rules have been passed under an unConstitutional process. We are in uncharted waters.

If a Democrat had done this, Althouse would have a dozen posts up and would be regurgitating Limbaughisms until the cows come home.

But when Republicans violate the Constitution, she looks the other way.

as I rcall is that the state is the personification of the zietgeist--the will of the people-- most of whom would be those you refer to as "crackers

Zeitgeist, that izz. Re-read the Philosophy of History, and other Hegelian klassix. The young Hegel, not a friend of the british, may have been somewhat sympathetic to the American revolution as he was to the French --but by the 1800's he was not supportive once he was informed of the treatment of the natives, and the ...slavery issue. The Torys' errors were shifted to the States, for the most part. Hegel was an abolition ...for the most part and supported something like a pan-african congress

You need some edification, AA epsilon. Or at least the cliffsnotes to the Great Books. West made a faux-pas. Hardly comparable to, say BushCo's regular verbal gaffes or Palin's malapropisms. Rush is just doing this to grind his axe--.

Really? You mean MINORITY leader McConnell? Wasn't he supposed to be in the majority?

Wasn't Harry Reid supposed to go down?

Good point. Sen Reid, while not perfect, did manage to barely defeat Sharrie Angle, another GOP visionary in the Palin-teabagger tradition. Alas, no Pterodactyls and Moses theme parks for the near future.

j: you really have no idea nor have read the philosophy of right and are incapable of commenting in your own words on it. You, sir, a poseur--and you deign to lecture the commentariat on the shortcomings of others--sorry charlie--you are a loser.

Mildly apropos is the news that Denis Dutton died last week. He was the professor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Dutton) who started the bad writing contest skewering academic phony-baloney poseurs in the liberal arts. Primarily those who trafficked in the utterly fraudulent criticism realm. The stuff that won is truly, terrifyingly appalling. Judith Butler is one of the great bleating phonies who was featured regularly. I took the time to follow a lot of links. And I was amazed that every single request from a reasonable person asking for an explanation of these supposed geniuses' writing was ignored. No one could step up and even defend this crap. Frankly I'm surprised Ann has never discussed this area of academics given what a delightful stickler she is for solid, understandable, yet enjoyable writing. It irks me especially that these people are still employed and so highly regarded. Last bit: Noam Chomsky had a great insight into this issue with this quote:

There are lots of things I don't understand -- say, the latest debates over whether neutrinos have mass or the way that Fermat's last theorem was (apparently) proven recently. But from 50 years in this game, I have learned two things: (1) I can ask friends who work in these areas to explain it to me at a level that I can understand, and they can do so, without particular difficulty; (2) if I'm interested, I can proceed to learn more so that I will come to understand it. Now Derrida, Lacan, Lyotard, Kristeva, etc. --- even Foucault, whom I knew and liked, and who was somewhat different from the rest --- write things that I also don't understand, but (1) and (2) don't hold: no one who says they do understand can explain it to me and I haven't a clue as to how to proceed to overcome my failures. That leaves one of two possibilities: (a) some new advance in intellectual life has been made, perhaps some sudden genetic mutation, which has created a form of "theory" that is beyond quantum theory, topology, etc., in depth and profundity; or (b) ... I won't spell it out.

Awesome stuff. Dead on. So, finally, what do people like Cornell West and Judith Butler really KNOW? Do they know anything of actual value? Or is it such an academic ghetto that, for those outside, i.e. the real world, there is no value at all?

wrong once again, edutcher. The point was qualitative, not ...yr usual AA.com frat boy chitchat

Some communication expert or professor could compare some recorded speeches of West or Obama...or John Kerry for that matter to Bush II (or Palin, McConnell, McCaint, many other GOPers) and easily demonstrate the superiority of Obama's speaking abilities (in terms of diction, delivery, content, argumentation, etc) to the good ol boys, regardless if one agrees with the Demos or not. WF Buckley's are no mo'.

That can be taught. Any phony can learn diction - the use of Lurch is illustrative. Many a Southerner has excellent speech - Haley Barbour, even Strom Thurmond.

All J shows is a racist mouth and a closed (more like glued shut) mind. Anyone impressed with cadence and diction alone would, of course, prefer a certain Bavarian corporal.

BTW J: abolitionism was hardly something unique--many churches were founded based on the conept, and for your rather stultified world view, you could have even seen the netflix of "amazing grace" about the methodists in England under Wilberforce passing the abolition of slave trade--but in your narrow and uninformed world, only "crackers" are to blame--

sad to say son-you lack considerable historical lnowledge and more sadly, the ability to think on your own--and you lack basic understanding of the great works of political philosophy and are totally unable to comment on them without references to wiki's and the like--

when you are ready, I will be happy to dialogue with you on Hegel; but you got a long way to go son.

nyet, Roger J. I'm quite aware of Hegel's point on the State as the embodiment of...Welt-Geist--he meant the German State, for the most part (or..... European). The point was merely that Hegel did not approve of the yankee freebooters or slavers. He's not quite the proto-nazi some read him as (or, shall we say his german nationalism did not equal...white power. Hegel actually says some positive things about ...Islam. a few anyway. He disliked the british probably mo' than he did the turks)

Damn!! That's just what Harry Reid said (“America is ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama – a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one")

not to mention Joe Biden" the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy"

Its good to see that all of the Democrats are of like opinion regarding our estimable President.

J: quite an articulate response chico--I am not a puta (spanish for bitch)--and you continue to demonstrate your total lack of intellectual ability by challenging me to some sort of fisticuffs? really? are you that fucking shallow? Aqpparently so

so when challenged to demonstrate your understanding you resort to some sort of silly "calling out?"

You are an absolute fool J-- I actually thought you might have had some class--

Troop: how they hanging dude--guyabaras are cool--My dad was cuban--I grew up with ropa vieja, frioles negros, vaca frita and the other great cuban dishes--if any one is interest: Memories of a Cuban Kitchen is the single best resource for cuban cooking out there.

Take two cups of black beans and soak then overnite in water to cover--the next day take two cloves of garlic crushed a bay leaf and a half onion and green pepper sliced--put it on the stove and cook slowly. after about 3 hours, take the remaining half onion and green pepper and an additional garlic clove--dice finely and sautee in olive oil until soft--add a table spoon or so of ground cumin. (this is the sofrito)--when that is done, dump it in the black beans and simmer until everything is soft--KEY POINT--at the end taste--you may want to add a table spoon or so of vinegar--stir back in and finish cooking--serve over white rice.

Its a great black bean recipe--Senora Albanes came over from Cuba where her husband had been jailed on the Isle of Pines by castro==a fine and elegant cuban lady--please think of her, now gone, when you do these beans--

First of all, you're right, this is "pretentious straining at erudition", and I also think the observation that "PC folk have failed — over a long period of time — to give him the feedback that would have kept him from developing this absurdly inflated style of speech" is probably spot-on. Unfortunately, the rest of your post is maddening, because you're saying you'll laugh at a black person - gladly - but only under specific PC conditions. Why?

While someone speaking ebonics isn't funny in and of itself (I'm of the school that we're Americans, and this country has lots of language variations that we should be proud of, ebonics being one of them because, like Rap, it's influence is so powerful) mocking an idiot - no matter how they reveal it - should be fair game. Why just pick on the "puffed-up academic"? Are you also part of the "eat the rich" crowd?

While we were talking yesterday, on the Mark Twain post, about how liberalism can hurt black people, someone mentioned that keeping blacks as "the other" was what's behind this n-word nonsense - an idea I agree with. It also got me to thinking of all the new ways liberal racism behaves, so subtly, without ever saying it's name. Some may not mock ebonics but will use it to marginalize blacks, something I used to notice, all the time, on the old Donahue show. On the other hand, there are those whites who will indulge the stupidest ideas if it's spoken in slang, or merely by blacks - like the whole "don't snitch" campaign when criminal gangs were taking over.

I can think of other examples, too, but my point is - whatever aspect we're discussing - when political correctness nags at you, it doesn't do you - or, *most importantly*, the blacks who are screwing up - any good. Because, as you said about West, they don't know when they've made fools of themselves. It also doesn't foster equality - why shouldn't blacks, of any class, be mocked like everyone else?

Finally, I want to explain that *most importantly*:

If you care about blacks, looking at our role in America from a historical perspective, then you have to consider we're being "brought up" from the limitations imposed on us by slavery, etc. I, as a black person, may be a full-blown American in my heart, but I (we) still need your help to understand (and even accept) certain things - including, at this late date, the concept of freedom - to the level and degree the average white American does. To baby us does no one any good. Mock us if we deserve it - you're free, too, right? There's a lesson, for us, in that, too.

trooper--I know you to be a great american :) you are right about the vinegar--but when you make this recipe, please think about senora albanes--came to Miami alone in 1960--moved next to my dad in Miami who befriended then--she had two children whom my dad pretty much adopted--wilfredo and maria--wilfredo become a rocket scientest (really)--phd in astrophysics and works at Huntsville--and Maria, who became a pederiation-- both successful--Dr Albanes--imprisoned by castro did get out in late the 1970s but died shortly thereafter--a great story, IMO, of the brave Cubans who came to Miami and did themselves proud.

Many black people, to a degree not so common among whites, feel the need to show that they are educated thinking they'd otherwise be assumed stupid.

I'm perfectly comfortable being me and expecting most people to recognize my intelligence through natural interaction, while dismissing those who who don't recognize it as themselves stupid or unobservant.

Many black people fear they cannot assume that benefit of the doubt that I, as a white guy, take for granted.

True, true. A fine observation. Care to tell us how you overcome that when faced with it?

And J: its easy to be a stud on the internet--you have no intellectual cred, and you have no courage one on one. but if you are really interested, contact me one on one--click on my profile name. It will put you in touch with me

I heard a woman read an abominably long poem at, I think, Clinton's inauguration. I pegged her as someone trying to sound educated and was surprised to learn that it was Maya Angelou, a respected poet.

I haven't been able to find the original source for the quote--a speech or a presentation. I originally encountered it on Prawfsblog in a discussion of this kind of douche(gas)baggery in academic writing here:

What 'surcame' proves is that Cornel West can't spell. Likely, he heard 'succumb' as 'surcome'. It is logical, therefore, that when he is reaching for the past tense of 'surcome' he would arrive at 'surcame'. No ebonics, just grammatical consistency in underwritten by atrocious spelling.

J remains the absolute eptiome of a modern liberal--bereft of knowledge about anything and only capable responding with slurs about one's mother--modern liberals such as J are clearly pieces of shit. Nothing more.

Hey, I actually bought Cornel West's rap album. (Still available on Amazon.) It is beyond parody - the album was apparently one of the reasons why Larry Summers at Harvard called West on the carpet for West's lack of actual academic work. West departed for Princeton in a snit.

I remember an interview with Prof. West in the Boston Globe. It was filled with inanities, but one stood out (and of course wasn't challenged by the interviewer) where he claimed that white people were afraid of black sexuality.

Late to the party but... "pretentious straining at erudition" IS a form of ebonics. The stereotype (of Word-a-Day straining for status) is as old as Amos 'n' Andy but isn't particularly a black thing. What is a black thing is being condescended to by white liberals who give malapropisms and mispronunciations a pass. They don't want to refudiate what they think is ebonics by misunderestimating the speaker.

Which is hilarious because lefty journalists and academics mistake verbal acuity with intelligence. They think their own (inflated) skill-set is the most important metric of human achievement, ignorant asses that they are.

As for me, I mispronounce words that I've only learned by reading and I get called on it with embarrassing regularity.

U.S. corporations had their biggest profit quarter, ever, since they started keeping track over 60 yrs ago. So what's the excuse now? Someone said a mean word about them so they won't hire? Someone looked at them funny?

Ah, Garage comes out with his usual brilliant analysis. You really do think this, don't you? You really think that a business makes profit and ergo it must hire more people or else it's some dark conspiracy against the working class. Amazing.

I'll tell you right now, no CEO in the country, much less small business, thinks in the manner of "We made lots of money this quarter--start hiring people, anybody!" Hiring has to have a business purpose. No employer hires people simply because he's sitting on cash--he hires because he needs more people to do the required work.

What the other guy said was right: businesses aren't hiring because of uncertainty. Many businesses are enjoying profitability, but many only so because they've cut the fat and streamlined.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberatin' and conjugatin' the Emancipation Proclamation, does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense!"

It's a common problem - well-known left-wing intellectuals often say the stupidest things possible - but the liberal audience still thinks they are the smartest people around, much smarter that Bush, Limbaugh or Palin.

And speaking of smartness - Obama promised liberals that Obamacare would cut premiums by 3000%, and the audience applauded him. Now, can anyone of the left-wing apologists find anything that Bush said that would be even remotely as stupid as that? And if it does not fit, you must acquit.

This isn't really a malapropism, which is the substitution of a similar-sounding (but genuine) word for the more appropriate one (q.v. malapropos and the Sheridan connotations.) It's more accurately a form of linguistic hypercorrection. Both are hallmarks of a partially literate vocabulary and indicative of a mind stretched beyond its natural boundaries. West is just one of a multitude in the academy who substitute orotund phrasing for depth of thought.

For my part, West's appearance in the cod-philosophical nonsense that was The Matrix Reloaded was a salient milestone on his descent into vaudeville.

Finally, a tour de force from a 1996 book published by the State University of New York Press. It was located by M.J. Devaney, an editor at the University of Nebraska Press. The author is D.G. Leahy, writing in Foundation: Matter the Body Itself.

Total presence breaks on the univocal predication of the exterior absolute the absolute existent (of that of which it is not possible to univocally predicate an outside, while the equivocal predication of the outside of the absolute exterior is possible of that of which the reality so predicated is not the reality, viz., of the dark/of the self, the identity of which is not outside the absolute identity of the outside, which is to say that the equivocal predication of identity is possible of the self-identity which is not identity, while identity is univocally predicated of the limit to the darkness, of the limit of the reality of the self). This is the real exteriority of the absolute outside: the reality of the absolutely unconditioned absolute outside univocally predicated of the dark: the light univocally predicated of the darkness: the shining of the light univocally predicated of the limit of the darkness: actuality univocally predicated of the other of self-identity: existence univocally predicated of the absolutely unconditioned other of the self. The precision of the shining of the light breaking the dark is the other-identity of the light. The precision of the absolutely minimum transcendence of the dark is the light itself/the absolutely unconditioned exteriority of existence for the first time/the absolutely facial identity of existence/the proportion of the new creation sans depth/the light itself ex nihilo: the dark itself univocally identified, i.e., not self-identity identity itself equivocally, not the dark itself equivocally, in “self-alienation,” not “self-identity, itself in self-alienation” “released” in and by “otherness,” and “actual other,” “itself,” not the abysmal inversion of the light, the reality of the darkness equivocally, absolute identity equivocally predicated of the self/selfhood equivocally predicated of the dark (the reality of this darkness the other-self-covering of identity which is the identification person-self).

I'm not convinced that this doesn't represent the norm in academia these days. It's 100% bullshit meaningless crap. It says absolutely nothing.